


Deep Within the Hall of Shadows

by alternatedoom



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Angst, Attempts Were Made At Canon Compliance, Bathing/Washing, Caretaking, Cockblocked By Legion Shenanigans, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Grief, Impotence, M/M, Missing Scene, Multi, Not Beta Read, Older Characters, Oral Sex, Peer Pressure, Rare Pairings, Sex Work, Spy Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 01:17:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15207641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alternatedoom/pseuds/alternatedoom
Summary: Mathias after his rescue from Detheroc's cage.





	Deep Within the Hall of Shadows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Triskaideka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triskaideka/gifts).



> 1\. Vanessa VanCleef is the stand in for the player character in this because Vanessa, my constant companion, she wants and deserves it.  
> 2\. I don't actively ship Jorach/Mathias, but the rogue class hall is my favorite, and I badly wanted to read a story that both captured the atmosphere down in Dal's basement and brought some life to its inhabitants. That itch was not getting scratched on the kink meme, so I began to write this about a year ago. I lost inspiration, abandoned it and thought I wasn't ever going to finish it, but when I found it again and reread what I'd written, my affection and interest flooded back. From game dialogue and cinematics I see Mathias as a bland, uptight, obsessive workaholic with the driest sense of humor if any (and honestly even that seems like a stretch) but it's canon that he was imprisoned for a whole pile of gated content and emerged from the experience shirtless, and that is like catnip to me.  
> 3\. I headcanon Mathias had a brief, perhaps year-long rebellion in his late teens, and while not betraying the Stormwind Assassins or his grandmother's trust in any way, he associated with some persons on the outskirts of and/or the other side of the law.  
> 4\. Much of Taoshi and Mathias' spoken dialogue in the Council of Shadows meeting is reproduced in full or adapted straight out of that cutscene in the game.  
> 5\. Once again I found myself seeking out the superb [Medicinal guide to herbs](http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Medicinal_guide_to_herbs), an A+ awesome fanwork by Giggitygoo of Wyrmrest Accord. Written based on quests and actual IRL plants!  
> 6\. CW for a euphemistic treatment of the kind of gross unhygenic awfulness that would result from being kept in a cage for weeks and fed bad food.  
> 7\. For Triskaideka, who reads and engages with every gosh darn thing I write (!) picks up on all the things and writes lovely in-depth comments with various reactions to whatever bits stood out. Trisk, this one's a little different, but it is for you. <3

When they enter Glorious Goods, the man behind the counter laughs in disbelief upon seeing him. Mathias needs a few seconds to come up with the proprietor's name: Red Jack Findle. Mathias possesses a passing familiarity with Dalaran, but it isn't like in Stormwind where he knows every face in Old Town. Still, he can recognize each of the persons closely associated with Jorach's criminal organization.

"That who I think it is? Seriously?" Findle peers sideways to see who's following him.

"He is with me," Taoshi says, emerging from behind Mathias and flashing her Uncrowned insignia.

"Oh," Jack Findle says, sounding surprised. "Miss Taoshi, I didn't see you there. Didn't know it was you, I mean." He sniffs doubtfully as he saunters to the establishment's front door and locks it, flipping the _Open_ sign to _Closed_. "The SI:7 cleaning outhouses now?"

"That will be enough out of you," Taoshi orders in her incontrovertible way. Mathias likes Pandaren, he really does.

"Yes ma'am." Jack edges back around them to press a button beneath the counter. A previously invisible door in the wall swings open, taking a huge mounted shelf with it, and Mathias follows Taoshi down the hall within. Every step means pain, and Mathias focuses on putting one foot in front of the other as fluidly as possible.

The journey has been a slog; everything hurts. His tendons have probably shortened from the period of sedentary disuse, as if he weren't short enough already. The stiffness in his limbs is bone-deep, but the skin irritation along his inner thighs and buttocks is what packs pain into every trudging step. At least on the flight to Dalaran, he'd had the distraction of collaborating with Taoshi on an emerging plan to stop Detheroc. But they can hardly speak freely now.

Even wearing the hooded cloak Taoshi acquired from a stall coming in from Krasus' Landing (Mathias isn't certain whether she bought it, stole it, or had it handed off to her), he's conscious of the many eyes on him as Taoshi leads him through the Dalaran sewers. Mathias is grateful to have the garment, whatever means she came by it. Rogues tend to be people-watchers by nature, and that's not even counting the actual paid lookouts. Mathias discreetly tugs the hood a tad farther over his face, down past his eyebrows. He's bound to be spotted. He's already been recognized in Taoshi's company by more than Red Jack Findle, he's sure. Still, no point making identification easy, or making later plausible deniability difficult.

Taoshi leads him along the plankways to what was once the Cantrips and Crows restaurant, though calling the Cantrips a restaurant is generous. More accurately, the place had been a dive that served up lousy food, terrible cheap alcohol and nightly stabbings. But that was before the Uncrowned took over a full quarter of the Dalaran Underbelly as their headquarters. Mathias makes a mental note to investigate later what became of the former owner. He can't immediately come up with the man's name, and he curses himself for getting rusty so fast. He remembers the head waitress, Narisa. 

Narisa... Redgold.

Taoshi brings him in the direction of a tall man with a loose mane of silver-white hair, clustered and bent over a table with a pair of black-masked human women, a map lying visible between their bodies as they lean together as though sharing in a conspiracy. Even in the safest of places, old habits die hard. From his posture he's clearly giving the two women instructions.

Mathias realizes it's Jorach Ravenholdt a second before Jorach turns around, or perhaps Mathias only recognizes him as he's turning, Mathias can't be sure. The hair, the broad shoulders, barrel-chested, slim at the waist--

"Jorach," he breathes. 

Jorach had been graying when Mathias first met him, but the process that Mathias remembers as a touch of distinguished fading at the temples is now complete, with Jorach's long brown hair transformed entirely into a soft, silvery white. His face is lined and his skin no longer youthful, but his brilliant blue-green eyes are keen and alert as ever, unchanged by the passage of time.

Mathias clears his throat and tries again, managing a more normal, audible tone. "Jorach."

Jorach's mouth tightens for half a second at the sight of him, though his expression then swiftly turns guarded, a blank mask. "Master Shaw. I wasn't sure whether we'd see you again. How are you holding up?"

Mathias wonders if he should have said 'Lord Ravenholdt.' Are they on a by-title basis now? "Mostly I'm grateful for the timely rescue."

"Of course. Are you injured?" Jorach looks him over with those sharp, assessing eyes.

"I'm fine." A lie so obvious it's silly. Mathias generally thinks through the things that come out of his mouth; automatic lies are not his standard practice, but he's under pressure and in bad condition besides. "I've been better," he allows. "But there are far more pressing matters at hand. Can we talk?"

"Yes," Jorach says. "Come with me." 

Mathias turns to see if Taoshi will be accompanying them, and to say a word of thanks and parting to her if not, only to find she's already slipped away. The hood blocks most of his peripheral vision, and Taoshi moves with the admirable silence of a Cathedral mouse. One with its vocal cords cut.

Jorach digs into his breast pocket with a clink and offers up a tiny vial as he leads Mathias deeper into the lair of the Uncrowned. "Drink this."

Mathias takes the vial--eyeing his fingers, Jorach places it in his hand with delicate care to avoid touching Mathias' skin or nails, for which he cannot blame Jorach in the least. Jorach's long-fingered hands remain handsome and refined, with no outward sign of the condition that plagues him. 

Mathias examines the vial in the dim lighting of the hallway. As they pass under a wall-mounted torch he can discern the sheen of pewter in a winding curl wrapped around the violet glass, but the deep color of the glass prevents him seeing the color of the substance within. "What is it?"

"Painkiller."

"Take it back then, I need my mind clear."

Jorach half-turns, focusing his intense blue-green eyes on Mathias as they walk. "It won't dull your brain. It will ease your discomfort, only. A child could see you're not moving well."

Mathias' brain already feels dull from weeks in fel-chained cages with no mental stimulation except his fears and Detheroc's malevolent bouts of gloating, but he isn't about to confess that to Jorach. Then, like a dead motor engine kicking back into gear, his mind suddenly makes the connection and his mouth blurts it out. "This is what you take for the arthritis?"

Jorach nods. "I could give you something stronger, but I do want you conscious. Are you in very much pain?"

"It's superficial. I'm managing." Mathias uncaps the vial, puts it to his lips and tilts it up, swallowing the contents. The liquid tastes faintly bitter and leaves a coppery aftertaste. The active ingredient certainly isn't silverleaf or any common painkiller he knows. "What's in this?"

"We all have our secrets, don't we?" Jorach says. "But I assure you, it's perfectly safe. Neither poison nor truth serum, or whatever else you fear."

"I didn't even think of truth serum." But poison is no concern, not now. Jorach isn't one to waste resources, and the Uncrowned would never have gone to the trouble of extracting him and bringing him here if they wanted him dead. 

Jorach smiles faintly at him.

All eyes flicker to Jorach as he moves confidently through the heart of the former Cantrips and Crows, and as the companion shuffling at his side, Mathias too attracts more attention than he would like. As unobtrusively as possible he again drags the hood of the cloak a little further down over his face. Jorach runs his organization with an iron hand, and every human, elf, gnome, goblin, orc and troll down here belongs to him--save the few, of course, who secretly belong to another infiltrating group, or to Mathias himself. But Mathias certainly doesn't want to widen any eyes he shouldn't.

Jorach leads him straight through the restaurant's kitchen, past a short row of brick ovens. Mathias recognizes Elling Trias standing by the sink and angles his face away quickly. Jorach takes him through what might have been a waiting room, or a lounge, to an arched bookcase on the far wall.

"The famous bookcase," Mathias says, realizing where they are: the very doorstep of the Chamber of Shadows.

"Shhhh," Jorach says, softening the instruction with a smile. He pulls a wall torch sideways, and a weight mechanism draws the shelves back to reveal an elegantly curving staircase heading down. The steps are hard on Mathias' chafed flesh, but they soon reach the bottom of the stairwell and what is unmistakably the Chamber of Shadows. Mathias had not, since the Uncrowned took up residence here, ever thought to see the grandeur of this particular council room, so he takes a good look around as they walk.

The room is hexagonal, with doors on four of the walls, and though the space is large and windowless wall torches, a massive iron chandelier, and huge high candleabras light it brightly. A harp stands to one side; Jorach always liked music while he worked. In another area is a desk and a messy pile of books as though mid-research. Along one wall rests a rack of weapons, along another some serving tables, and on the opposite wall Myrokos' alchemy table. Mathias recognizes a few of the poisons catalyzing in beakers by sight--simmering stinger venom and gromsblood, infusions made from Banshee's Bell berries, even what looks like a titration of Black Lotus. On the long center table are additional, more traditionally sized candlebras. None of the Shadows of the Uncrowned are present around the meeting table; the room stands empty but for the two of them.

Jorach doesn't stop by the long table as Mathias expects, instead continuing across the room to a plain expanse of gray stone wall. To untrained eyes this stretch of granite would look unremarkable, but Mathias can identify the signs of another secret door (mostly by the pattern of dust and one long, thin, barely-there line of shadow along a seam) several moments before Jorach pushes three particular stones inwards and a portion of the wall swings out.

Jorach puts an arm out to gesture him in, and Mathias takes a step forward but balks when he sees inside: a square room set with two couches, two easy chairs, side tables and a double bed. The room has a doorway in each corner and is carpeted in plush furs save for crossing perpendicular stone pathways. The only decorative touches are a stocked bar on one side and a shelf opposite holding implements both sensual and carnal: ornate masks and plain blindfolds, soft ropes, jars and bottles, and carved phalluses. Peacock and raven feathers hang from cords on the wall.

Mathias stands rooted, held fast by disbelief. "Your sex room? Are you serious?"

"The VIP room," Jorach corrects, putting a hand on the small of his back to urge him forward. Mathias is surprised to be touched, as disgusting as he unquestionably is, but save for odor the cloak conceals his foulness well. Despite Jorach's hand, Mathias doesn't budge. "Keep walking," Jorach says.

Thankfully, this room too lies empty, so at least no one will be witness to the dispute they're about to have. Mathias shifts his upper body away from Jorach's hand, twisting around. Jorach's almost a full foot taller than Mathias and a large, imposing man, but Mathias feels no sense of physical intimidation from him. "Jorach, if you think for one second that I--"

"Please," Jorach says crisply. "No. You're in shock if you think--"

"I'm not in shock," Mathias interrupts. "Look, I don't need to see your whole lair. We just need to talk and we can do it in here." He jerks a thumb sideways, towards the Chamber of Shadows and the Uncrowned council table.

Jorach puts up both elegant hands, palms forward in a soothing plea for patience. "And we will. But you're going to be here several hours at least. Vanessa isn't back yet, and the Legion's great strike isn't going to happen tonight. Let's get you a bath and shave and a good meal, get you looked at, then we'll talk about whatever you want to talk about."

Jorach has a velvety smooth voice and a way with words that can make a man believe his suicide mission is his own idea, but Mathias is having none of it. "All the niceties can wait, Jorach--"

"Stop arguing with me," Jorach suddenly demands with all the imperiousness of the crime boss he is; Jorach has long been a man who is rarely if ever refused. When Mathias falls silent, more because he's startled than anything else, Jorach's sharp tone gentles. "I suspect you need a healer whether you want one or not. Also, you reek and I do not want you befouling my furniture."

Mathias subsides. Truly, he makes for a repulsive guest, if that is what he is to the Uncrowned. He can't argue with Jorach even if he does feel reluctant to waste time. And he is fiercely, desperately hungry.

"I wasn't expecting to stay long," Mathias says tentatively, but he acquieses physically by taking a few steps further into the 'VIP' room, looking it over again. The space is more dimly lit than the Chamber of Shadows, with only a few wall torches and a single brazier to illuminate whatever iniquity is conducted within. He can hear running water somewhere.

Mathias wonders how many people have fucked on these couches. "I certainly don't want to ruin your furniture."

If Jorach notices the wry irony in his last statement, he ignores it. "Good. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to get a sofa carried down here."

A bath, then. "Are you going to give me privacy?"

"No," Jorach says bluntly. "Like you said... we need to talk."

Mathias sighs.

"Come now, you were always so good about doing whatever needed to be done," Jorach coaxes, directing him along one of the stone paths. They pass through a doorway into an adjoining room where a recessed bathtub is already filling with steaming hot water from a tap in the wall.

The room is absurdly large for a water closet, nearly the same size as the Chamber of Shadows. "Only you would have a palatial water closet in your headquarters in the sewers," Mathias says as he wanders inside. "This is larger than the king of Stormwind's."

"My life has its little rewards," Jorach answers, unmistakable satisfaction playing around his lips.

Mathias holds up the empty vial he's been carrying. "What shall I do with...?"

"Oh, just put it on the table."

Mathias sets the empty vial down and takes a second look around. The room holds not only a dining set, but a wardrobe and a cooking hearth and a sideboard for liquor, and a small area of the floor in one corner, perhaps three feet square, is capped off by a wooden lid. The walls and floor are stone rather than rickety wood planking, like the exterior of the Underbelly. Something feels off, something is pinging his sleuthing sense, and he can't put his finger on what. "Why do you have a table and chairs in here?"

"You're about to find out both reasons," Jorach says. Two attendants come in, one a young high elf man with tied-back blond hair, carrying a basket with a bar of soap, a razor blade, and a mirror amidst other things Mathias can't see, and with an empty silver pitcher in his other hand. "This is my assistant, N--"

"Niron, I know," Mathias says. As soon as the words leave his mouth, he realizes cutting the introduction off like that probably comes across as more than a bit rude.

But Jorach seems amused rather than offended. "Yes, of course you know." Niron sets down the basket and pitcher on the flat shelf part of the alcove tub, then goes to the wardrobe and rummages through a stack of towels. The other attendant, a human woman, stands at Jorach's back with her hands clasped behind her like a fancy waiter. "Now, what do you want to eat?"

"I don't care." 

"There's a restaurant out there and the whole city of Dalaran above. Tell me what you want and we'll send someone to get it."

Mathias shrugs, because for weeks or months he's been living off questionable bits of meat and bad water that sometimes made him sick. Jorach is an epicurean, and anything Jorach deigns to feed him will be superior to his last hundred meals. "What I eat doesn't matter. All that matters right now is what happens next with Detheroc."

Jorach stares at him. "Mathias will have a rare steak cooked in butter," Jorach says slowly, as though he's searching his memory banks for twenty-year-old preferences. "And some of the mashed potatoes and the cherries."

"Actually... some bread," Mathias admits. "It's been a while."

"And butter and half a loaf of bread. Bring a bottle of whiskey too. The good whiskey. Mathias, take off your clothes and get in the tub."

"You know I dislike being the only naked person in the room," Mathias says, though he pulls the cloak over his head and drops the rough fabric to the floor, then bends to his boots. "My modesty won't allow for it."

"Of course." Jorach hardly pauses. "Niron will disrobe too if you like."

Niron reacts to this blase announcement with perfect servant's stoicism, his haunting sky-blue eyes trained on Mathias, his arms full of towels, his neutral expression unchanging. Mathias has no wish to make the task at hand any more objectionable than it's already going to be for Jorach's assistant, and he certainly doesn't need the situation to get any more painfully awkward.

Jorach has always been a master of neatly crafting ways of making the stubborn meekly do whatever he wants them to. Mathias knows when he is beaten.

"It's tempting," Mathias says dryly, to drop the subject. He continues stripping slowly, trying not to aggravate his sore parts, and taking care not to hide himself even as he feels self-conscious of the crusted filth over his lower body. He's retained few enough garments left to remove--his ruined boots, his belt (very much needed because he's lost far too much weight and will be swimming in his pants without the cinch), said repugnant pants, the salvageable bracers from his wrists he still never wants to see again.

While he discards his clothes piece by piece, Jorach goes over to the sideboard and pours himself a glass of wine. "Did the demons take your shirt?" Jorach inquires politely.

"No."

Jorach turns to face him. "Mathias, what happened to your shirt?"

Mathias holds his pants loosely in his hands for a moment before releasing them to the floor. He's been short of stature and slight of build his whole life, he's hardly self-conscious about those things any more. He's aware of how thin he's become, but his only real cause for embarrassment is his squalid condition. "How did you know where to find me?"

Jorach smiles as though pleased to match wits, to consider a trade of information. To his great credit and Mathias' gratitude, Jorach keeps his eyes up. "The old-fashioned way-- we looked." Jorach gestures with his wineglass, a motion encompassing the whole room. "Spied. Explored. Followed every possible lead. We sent our people to scour every corner of the Broken Isles."

Mathias chose the wrong question, then: what he wants to know is how the Uncrowned figured out they should search for him in the first place. Amber turning up dead doesn't exactly bear out Mathias being imprisoned and impersonated by a dreadlord. But one exchange of information at a time. "I tore my shirt into strips for maybe, I don't know, a week or two's worth of hygiene. My smallclothes as well." And his socks too. He'd disposed of his gloves the same way, though he hadn't the handstrength to rip those into pieces.

"Ah."

The recessed tub is inlaid with two taps, two drains and two steps going down, and Mathias descends without hurrying despite the fact that with his back turned, he acutely feels three pairs of eyes on his backside. Once in, he lowers himself into a sitting position in several inches of steaming hot water. The heat stings briefly against the irritated skin on his thighs and between his buttocks, searing like his skin is on fire, but the tincture Jorach gave him to drink is kicking in swiftly, and once sitting under the tap he relaxes almost immediately, feeling his tight muscles loosen. The wide and heavy flow of hot water over the back of his neck and his shoulders makes anything else impossible.

Niron rolls up the white sleeves of his shirt well past his elbows, then reaches in and pulls the plug, judiciously letting the worst of the flaking-off sludge down the drain before stopping the tub back up and letting it begin to refill. Niron's manner remains impersonal and professional, his expression so detached Mathias wonders if he's seen worse.

Niron removes his boots and rolls up his pants to the knees, then dangles his feet into the tab behind Mathias' back. Mathias turns to look at him only to have Niron face him forward with hands on his shoulders. 

Pouring gel from a bottle into one hand, Niron begins to clean him. The leisurely, unhurried way Niron scrubs lather into his scalp and works fingers through his hair makes Mathias think perhaps bathing him isn't as odious a task as he assumes. Or bathing filthy people is Niron's specialty.

In truth, from what Mathias understands, Niron's specialty is professionally accomplishing whatever Jorach needs done, from taking dictation to acid-based corpse disposal. He's not Jorach's personal assistant for nothing.

Mathias feels uncomfortable at first, but by the time Niron lifts each of Mathias' arms at the wrists to scrub his armpits, stretching his limbs at the same time, Mathias has grown so relaxed that his natural sense of embarrassment has diminished. Niron alternates a soapy kneading of his shoulders with a gentler facial massage and carefully pours pitchers of hot water over his head, cleansing and rinsing his face and arms and chest and his ears both inside and out, not missing an unwashed inch of his upper body. Mathias drops his chin to his chest, resting his neck and feeling the pull of the muscles in his shoulders.

But at length Mathias raises his head, because more significant items wait on an urgently important agenda. "So I'm in the bath you wanted," he begins. "Let's talk shop. I'm grateful for the rescue. But I must ask more of you."

"When Vanessa returns we'll discuss our options."

Jorach's failing to comprehend the urgency of the situation. Mathias leans against the side of the tub. Niron silently rests both hands on Mathias' shoulders until he resumes his centered position. "Jorach, I overheard many of Detheroc's plans, and he openly gloated of others. He's been using my face to get Anduin Wrynn on board with a major all-out attack on the Horde. If this plan comes to fruition, the Horde-Alliance blowout will be enormous, and Azeroth will lose the larger fight against the Legion."

"I know," Jorach says, studying his chalice.

Niron circles the tub to retrieve a silver-inlaid comb, and when he returns Mathias slides sideways to allow his seeking hand to find the drain again. "We need to take Detheroc out. Are you with me on that?"

Jorach raises his eyes to Mathias' own. "I am the leader of the Uncrowned, not its monarch. After we talk the matter over the Council will take a vote. I can't promise you anything either way."

Mathias frowns, thwarted and frustrated already, but Jorach only gazes at him, and under Jorach's eyes relenting is a simple matter. Mathias sighs. "I appreciate your candor," he says, and Jorach flashes a quick smile at him, as if appreciating his understanding.

"Lie down, please," Niron says, the first words Mathias has heard him speak. Mathias stretches out and rolls onto his front in the water, because there's no question as to which side Niron is going to deal with, and Niron nudges his legs apart and begins to scrub gently at his inner thighs and buttocks with the washcloth. The cleansing burns abrasively on his raw and irritated skin, but Mathias lies still and silent in the water for Niron's work. If he still feels somewhat awkward to let someone else take care of him so intimately, in a way the ministrations are comforting too.

"You're lucky you don't have pressure ulcers," Jorach informs him, his voice coming from right above Mathias.

"Do you mind?" Mathias says, twisting his head back.

"Please, it's nothing I haven't seen."

"Stop eyeballing me or I'll tell all your assistants your old nickname," Mathias says, a threat with a hint of real vexation in it. He appreciates the chance to bathe and the care they're taking with him, but he's annoyed to have had no choice in the matter. He's annoyed to be examined like an object, given no privacy like he's still a prisoner.

"The claws come out," Jorach says, but he strolls back to the table. Lord Hat had been Jorach's nickname, standing for _Honor Among Thieves_. Everyone who knew and used it, save Mathias and Tethys, is dead, and Tethys is probably too much of a sot to remember those days.

At length Niron beckons Mathias up to a sitting position facing him. Niron scrubs Mathias' hands with a hard brush, taking care to get under his fingernails. No sooner has Niron lathered Mathias' scraggly, overgrown beard with thick white shaving lotion than Jorach is back at his side. Mathias remains just as naked as before, but this time he lets Jorach be. Jorach had been a hands-on sort of leader back when the gang he'd run had only had five members, and clearly little has changed with the years when Jorach takes up a project.

"He wears the duelist's style beard," Jorach says, sketching the loop of a slice of Mathias' face but carefully not touching. "Trim it closely here and here. A little gap here."

"You can just shave it all," Mathias says. "Probably easier."

"Nonsense, we want you to feel yourself again," Jorach insists.

"Matey!" interrupts a crowing, familiar voice from the doorway. Mathias looks up to see Admiral Tethys, as he styles himself now, throw out his arms in greeting. The bottle in one hand is half-empty, and his volume dial is still broken at ten. "Mathias, ye made it."

"Aye, I did," Mathias says, slipping into seaman's speak almost without realizing. "Thanks to the Uncrowned. You have my eternal gratitude." He glances at Jorach. Tethys is likely to speak far more candidly than Jorach about anything and everything, if Jorach allows him to do so. "And I'm going to need to beg your help again as soon as I can get you all in one place."

Tethys ambles to the side of the tub. He looks old just as Jorach does. They've all aged, yet Tethys' love of drink shows in his face in a way Jorach's does not. Tethys' cheeks are red, his nose bulbous and filled with broken veins. "Ye know ye'll have my support, Shaw."

"Thank you," Mathias says, meaning the words. "What are my chances of getting the rest of the Shadows on board?"

Tethys still has a parrot sitting gripping his shoulder, and it's either Crackers or a replacement of the exact same breed. "Depends what ye want from us, lad."

Mathias decides there's nothing to be gained from beating around the bush. "I need your aid in infiltrating Stormwind and killing the dreadlord who held me prisoner before he blows up the Horde-Alliance war."

Tethys exchanges a wily sideways look with Jorach, and for a split second it's clear Tethys is not entirely the loud and rambling drunkard in decline that he appears. Mathias isn't sure he likes that look.

"I'd put your chances at fifty-fifty, mate," Tethys says. "Taoshi'll vote yes, because she can't resist a mission with impossible odds. Garona will vote nay, won't wanna get involved none. The princess will too, hailing as she does from the kingdom o' 'build a wall to fix yer problems.' Vanessa'll vote no just for spite."

Mathias' heart sinks. Edwin's daughter has every reason to hate the Wrynns and the kingdom of Stormwind, but how short-sighted and vindictive to damn an entire world for bitterness.

"Valeera will be the wild card," Tethys concludes. "She might wanna prevent a war, straddling the factions as she does. She might not care." Tethys takes a swig from his bottle. "With the Uncrowned, as in life, Shaw, it always comes down to the ladies." Tethys staggers slightly, and Mathias revises his opinion about the state of Tethys' alcoholism for the third time in under sixty seconds.

Mathias is about to ask Jorach whether he agrees with Tethys' frank assessment when Tethys speaks again.

"Look at ye there," Tethys observes, leaning down and nearly splashing the bathwater with alcohol as he waves the bottle around. "Ye look like a ship's mast been attacked by a swarm o' woodpeckers."

"This is now far too many people seeing me undressed," Mathias says, but he keeps his shoulders squared and again holds off the automatic instinct to cover himself. 

"Just like old times then, eh?" Tethys shouts cheerfully, but he raises his bottle to Mathias and heads out, waving with his back turned. "Best corkscrew your tongue and make ready to stick it straight up Sanguinar's ass." Tethys swirls his bottle in an instructive upwards spiraling motion as he exits.

Jorach stands by the tub meditatively after Tethys leaves. A few moments later, after glancing back at Mathias and apparently satisfied Niron is accurately reproducing Mathias' facial hair, Jorach goes and sits back down.

The same human woman as before carries in a serving platter, and as she sets her burden down Mathias sees the single plate of food on the tray. The aromas take a few seconds to hit his nose, but once they do he's practically ready to float to the scents.

"Are you about done with me?" he asks, using every ounce of discipline he has left to keep himself from racing to the table. Niron nods, swiping at him with the razor a few more strokes before retreating. Mathias ducks his head under the faucet to give his hair one last rinse, then rises. Niron passes him a towel as as he stands up in the water.

Jorach watches him as Mathias climbs cautiously out of the recessed tub, studying him up and down as he roughly dries his face and hair and approaches the dining area. 

Jorach raps his knuckles twice on the table as if for superstition. "Well, your cock looks all right, and after something like this, what more can you really ask for?"

"You know," Mathias sighs as he wraps the towel around his waist, "for someone they call 'the Gentleman Rogue' you're not much of a gentleman."

"Oh, you wound me."

Mathias feels cold in the drafty Underbelly air after the heat of the bath, but he's far more hungry than he is chilly. Niron pulls out the chair beside Jorach, and Mathias plops down into it with relief. Niron returns once more to drape a second towel around Mathias' shoulders, which he receives gratefully. "Thank you."

Niron nods at him.

The plate before him is visibly hot, with a puddle of melted butter sizzling around the steak, and the creamy pile of potatoes is steaming. Still, eating with Jorach is like eating with the king, proper etiquette must be observed. Not because Jorach is Lord Ravenholdt, but because he's Jorach and eating in his presence is a formal occasion. So despite his hunger and his state of relative undress, Mathias drapes his napkin over his towel-covered lap before he picks up his fork. "Tell me what's in your arthritis elixirs," he suggests before taking a heavenly bite of mashed potatoes.

Jorach smiles, showing his perfect teeth. Definitely he treats them with something, no habitual smoker naturally keeps their teeth that white. "Proprietary recipe, I might get cut off if I talk. Worth at least three answers from you," he says, but then a shadow crosses his face, an important question newly remembered. "Mathias-- why didn't the dreadlord simply kill you?"

This question is too significant for sport in any game, and Jorach's manner too intense, and so Mathias shakes his head and answers plainly. "I don't know. I only suspect."

"I have a suspicion as well. There's only one thing you have Detheroc could possibly want." Jorach stares at him, not bothering, or too preoccupied, to maintain his usual poker face, and Mathias can almost see the wheels turning. "Information."

"An unforeseen need for some unknown intel," Mathias agrees, cutting a slice of meat.

Jorach frowns slightly. "The demons claim at every turn to know everything."

"I don't think the Legion is as omnicient as they boast," Mathias says, and takes a large bite of the steak, rare and buttery.

"That's comforting," Jorach says thoughtfully, and he lapses into distracted silence, his sharp hawk's gaze coming to rest on an empty spot of the table.

Same as with the painkiller elixir, any other time Mathias would have snorted at the idea of eating food presented to him by Jorach Ravenholdt. History together or no history, Jorach is the lord of the criminal underworld and the idea of trusting him is laughable. But now is not any other time, and so Mathias eats in earnest, savoring the civilized feeling of the knife in his hand almost as much as the juiciness of the cut of meat, the melted butter that drips hot from each bite into the pile of mashed potatoes, the crustiness of the bread. He blows on each forkful because the food is hot, and though instinct and hunger make him want nothing more than to wolf the meal down, Mathias forces himself to eat slowly, to chew at least a little.

"This is good. Thank you," he says between bites.

"Of course," Jorach says graciously, his mask falling back into place. The human woman comes back in with a bottle of whiskey and two tumblers, which she sets in front of Jorach, and a glass of water which she places in front of Mathias. Jorach pours two whiskeys and slides one over to him.

Though he long since stopped trying to come up with the information, the name of the former proprietor of Cantrips and Crows suddenly flashes back to Mathias. "So what happened to Ajay Green?"

"Are you concerned for his well-being?" Jorach seems entertained by the notion. "He was only too pleased to be bought out. He and the barmaid retired and last I heard they were living with his mother."

Though it pains him to stop eating even for a moment, Mathias sets his fork down on his plate and takes a sip of water, then one of whiskey. The whiskey has character, but he's too hungry to care. "The food's improved."

"Oh, it certainly has. Would you expect any less of me?"

Mathias shakes his head.

"I think the Kirin Tor is happier too for our occupancy. Crime in the city's gone down. And many fewer stabbings down here. This place just needed a little order."

They both glance at the doorway when a forsaken ambles in. "My lord," she rasps to Jorach. 

"I'll be right back," Jorach says, getting up and heading for the door, and he leaves with her. 

Mathias finishes his meal in silence, ripping up the bread, scraping the pieces in the butter and shoving them into his mouth, unable to hold back the ferocity of his appetite any longer.

Jorach's gone a good while. When Mathias finishes eating, the human woman clears away his plate. Niron scrubs the table, then spreads the flat cleaned surface with two dry towels and a bedsheet. Jorach comes back in with a round glazed jar in his hand, and upon seeing the table thusly padded, Jorach raps the exposed edge with his knuckles. "Hop up and lie down."

"Do I have to?" Mathias sighs.

"Yes," Jorach says.

And so Mathias crawls up onto the table, fully aware of his weary clumsiness, of his clean but stinging and reddened, mottled underlayer of skin, and he lies down on his front with his face close to Jorach's, because the alternative is putting his nether regions nearer Jorach. Mathias rests his chin on his folded hands. "Is this the part where you pull a priest out of your pocket?"

"I could. Everyone in this city owes me a favor or two," Jorach says. "Even you, now," he adds, a moment of teasing in which the edge of truth is only thinly veiled. "But no, Niron's just going to rub a salve into your skin. Unless you want a priest?"

Mathias shakes his head no.

"It wouldn't be the first time we led someone down here blindfolded."

Mathias thinks of the onion-smelling burlap sack the demons put over his head to transport him. "No. I expect you don't want too many people to see me down here."

"I'm not sure whether it would be good or bad for business," Jorach says, "but I'd rather not take the risk."

Mathias' neck is getting tired of the strained position, so he turns his head and sets his cheek on his flattened hands, feeling the cool, soothing sensation of the salve and trying not to shiver. Mathias can tell Niron is trying to be gentle, though touches on his raw skin still sting and the elf's fingers are delving and probing in his most personal places. "Does anyone ever complain about eating off the table where you do medical care?"

"Not to me," Jorach says, opening a wooden box of Kul Tiran cigars that's somehow made its way to his hands. "We've done improvisational surgery on this table," he says, humming as if with fondness for the memory.

Mathias looks about, at every element of the room. Something keeps continually nagging at the back of his mind. His eyes fall again on the wooden lid covering a section of the floor. He'd intially assumed it to be a sunken washbasin in the floor, meant for laundering, or even a second bathtub.

"What is-- what's down there?"

"The sewers," Jorach answers.

Niron finishes with the salve and silently goes back to the tub to wash his hands.

Mathias stares at the wooden lid before the realization hits him like a thunderclap: small and numerous dark spatter stains have soaked irrevocably into the stone around the wooden cover.

Bloodstains.

The salve clearly has a numbing effect, and his skin is bothering him less, but Mathias barely notices. "So this is the murder room, then."

Jorach's silent for a few moments. "Mm. What have you heard?"

"That no one ever finds the bodies."

"Well, it's convenient, certainly. The Dalaran sewers have sharks, as I'm sure you know," Jorach says.

"And crocodiles, yes. So you." Mathias covers his lips with his fist for a second. "You feed people to the sharks through that?"

"Yes."

"How do you know they won't just swim out, back to the Cantrips and Crows part of the sewer? It can't be more than two, three hundred feet?"

Jorach is focused on cutting his cigar. "Some shallow, bleeding cuts to the arms and legs. Nobody swims out."

Light, Mathias thinks, and the mental picture makes him momentarily close his eyes. "Is that how you disappear my people now?"

"Why do you want to have an ugly conversation?" Jorach asks neutrally.

"Tell me."

"They're oath-breakers, but as they're your lackeys, I don't go too hard on them," Jorach says mildly. "They receive the more merciful version."

"By which you mean...?"

Jorach meets his eyes. "I have their throats slit before we drop them in."

Mathias can't begin to think what to say to that. 

The SI:7's lost forty-something undercover and sleeper agents to Ravenholdt over the decades, with the first while his grandmother was still in command. The vast majority, of course, were killed long before Ravenholdt Manor burned to the ground and Jorach conceived of the Uncrowned. Jorach used to have all Ravenholdt's condemned taken outside and either shot, red-smiled, or disemboweled depending on his level of irritation with them. The woods in that part of Hillsbrad are full of skeletons in shallow graves killed in spring, summer, and autumn, and in winter, when the ground was frozen, barrel drums and chemical solutions came into play. But Jorach's organization could do anything at his hidden Hillsbrad estate. In Dalaran, even in the Underbelly, gunshots and bodies are less likely to go wholly unnoticed, and Mathias can think of no easier method of corpse disposal than the sewers and the hungry sharks.

Few occupations are as dangerous as espionage, and his agents all know what they're getting into, but the loss is still a damnable shame. Jorach is every bit as skilled as Mathias is at nosing out infiltrators.

Niron rummages through the wardrobe and pulls out a shirt, smallclothes, and pants, placing them on Mathias' chair.

Mathias sits up slowly and eases off the table with equal speed, or lack thereof. He's tired. 

"I spoke to Taoshi about your plan," Jorach says. "It's not bad."

Mathias dresses slowly. "Any improvements you'd like to suggest?"

"No," Jorach says. "It's fine. I don't like your odds, but I don't have a better idea."

"You think the Uncrowned will go for it?"

"I don't know." Jorach tops off their tumblers and rises. "Let's go sit."

Mathias follows Jorach back into the VIP room, this time without any argument. It's not worth the fuss.

He watches as Jorach knocks back his fresh drink and pours another while they walk. Jorach's on his fourth drink within an hour, perhaps not out of the norm for a young partygoer or socialite, but a lot for an assassin of fifty without gin blossoms who still looks to be in peak physical shape.

"Do you always drink this much?" Mathias asks, voicing his hunch.

"No, never." Jorach shakes his head. "Only since all this everything." Jorach makes a little face at his tumbler as he sits on one of the couches, knees comfortably apart. Considering his trim build, Jorach takes up a lot of space. "And I hate whiskey."

"Why are you drinking it then?" Mathias asks, sinking down next to him, careful not to slosh his drink. Jorach deals out large pours.

"I can't abide clashing booze breath," Jorach says intolerantly. "Whoever I'm planning to kiss, I drink whatever they're drinking."

"That's funny."

"Bottoms up," Jorach says.

Remembering Jorach's uninvited inspection in the bathtub, Mathias gets the joke, and he gives Jorach an unimpressed look. "Are you flirting with me?"

"No, sorry," Jorach says. "I don't take anyone's clothes off twice in one night. Not even yours."

Valeera Sanguinar comes in from one of the doors Mathias hasn't yet been through. Occasionally Detheroc showed him visions to torment him, among them Varian's funeral in Stormwind, and Mathias had a clear glimpse of Valeera when she'd stood next to Broll too lightly veiled to hide how disconsolate she was. She's taken his loss hard, Mathias thinks, and he can't blame her. Varian Wrynn had been larger than life. Though beautiful as ever, even now Valeera seems melancholy, the circles beneath her eyes giving her a spent weariness.

"Hello, Mathias," she says.

"How've you been?"

"Better than you," Valeera says. She's wearing an absolutely legendary pair of daggers at her hips. Mathias recognizes the Fangs of the Devourer by their hilts but makes no comment.

Jorach gestures with his tumbler. "Get us some company, Valeera, would you?"

"Alright," Valeera says, her voice still sweet as the candy red of her elven lipstick, and she leans back out behind the door, addressing an unseen attendant. "Send in some girls and a few boys," Valeera says. "And the Vinemaster."

"At once," the attendant responds, barely audible.

Valeera wanders over to them and sits down on the other couch. 

"I know what you're thinking, Mathias, but we don't talk business in here," Jorach says before Mathias can compose an opener for Valeera.

"I didn't say a word," Mathias protests.

"Good. Vanessa will be back soon, I promise. For now, enjoy the hospitality of the Uncrowned."

As if on cue, six women file in, followed by three men. Most of them are quite pleasant to look upon and a couple of them are armed: there's a blood elven woman with red hair and spectacles dressed like a corsair, with her midriff exposed by her short white shirt. There's a goblin woman in a formal gray tuxedo, with a black hat perched at a jaunty angle upon her head. Her name is Nikki, Mathias recalls, and she's chewing a large wad of gum. When Mathias' eyes meet Nikki's she does a little shimmy and blows a big pink bubble. A second goblin woman wears a lacy black bra and black leather pants, and the expression on her face suggests she has better things to do than fuck him for money, daring him with her violet eyes to choose her. There's a young blond human woman dressed in no more than scanty white and peach lingerie and matching slippers. She has an attractively curvy body but a sad look to her eyes that Mathias dislikes. A slender gnome with brown skin and light pink hair wears brighter pink leathers and a wide-eyed, playful expression. Dressed in sun-bleached undyed leathers and wearing prominent daggers, an unsmiling human with deep blue hair rounds out the collection of women.

The men are an equally odd and disparate assortment: first a glaring male blood elf with short dark hair dressed in faded black leathers and a pair of swords, his arms crossed as though he feels being in a prostitutes' line-up is beneath him. For someone with an appreciation for rough trade he'd have been a good choice. Beside him stands a barefoot night elven man with lavender skin and a bushel of white hair, wearing a pair of shorts the size of a bandage that prominently displays his sexual blessings. And last but certainly not least, there's a blond human boy in late adolescence who so resembles Anduin Mathias gives Jorach a sharp look.

The young man's eyes are a different shade of blue, his cheekbones more rounded and less angular, and he holds himself with an openly sensual confidence, but otherwise the likeness is nearly dead on. Beardless as yet, identical nose, similar strong jaw. Mathias can see the minute differences between them only because for some months he's been seeing Anduin every day with his father for the daily briefings. This boy wears only blue silk pants slung low on his hips and a pair of sandals. Bold Alliance blue, naturally.

Jorach ignores Mathias' dirty look, admiring the variety of flesh and ferocity on display.

A tall, tanned blood elf man comes strolling in last, dressed in a slim-cut suit in the current sin'dorei fashion, with auburn sideburns and spiky hair the same shade. His movements are self-assured, and even as he comes in he's still laughing and talking to someone in the other room. His face is another Mathias recognizes: Suntouched, and he doesn't use a first name.

While the other entrants line up before Mathias and Jorach, Suntouched walks past and gives them a perfunctory bow. "Sir," he says to Jorach. "Mr. Shaw." Then he turns and goes to Valeera, dropping to his knees in front of her couch. "Ms. Sanguinar."

Mathias returns his cataloging attention to the nine sex workers apparently waiting on his pleasure. Mathias rakes his eyes over them again, assessing which of them fuck part time and which full time. Clothes can be changed and thus dress can be deceiving, but scars and callouses, muscles lean or bulky, and scars are usually not. Mathias is certain the goblin in the lacy black is a washerwoman, based on the cracked, dry condition of her hands. Whatever color their skin, a launderer's hands tell of their labors. Fighters sometimes get a hardened look in the eyes over time that cannot be easily disguised, but Mathias has seen whores with the same hard-bitten glint, and cooks, and launderers, and stableboys, and criminals. It's a hard world out there. 

The callouses on a few of them tell a better story--the blood elven man, the petite gnome, the blue-haired human woman. The elven woman dressed like a corsair has heavily ink-stained but soft hands and pale indoor skin, and her clothes are pristine save for several colors of ink marring the cuff of a sleeve. She probably works as a scribe, and Mathias judges her pirate get-up a costume.

But even looking at Jorach's bordello employees makes him somewhat uncomfortable. Mathias hasn't been with anyone in at least a decade. Work keeps him beyond busy, every hour to hour, minute to minute. And as long as he has his right hand, he doesn't require intimate companionship. Mathias isn't even sure he wants any.

Mathias looks over at Jorach. "We have very different lives," Mathias says finally.

"Mine is better," Jorach says. "I mean, I assume."

"This is not necessary, Jorach."

"Neither was feeding you, you wouldn't have dropped dead," Jorach says. "But the moment my people pulled you out of that cage, you became an asset, so enjoy the care I take of my investments. Now pick one or two and let's kick back and relax until Vanessa gets here."

Mathias had the thought cross his mind to tell Jorach to choose for him, but on the heels of that idea it occurs to him Jorach might select the Anduin lookalike just to be a bastard. With that thought putting the situation into perspective, Mathias looks up at them again once more, quickly re-evaluating. The goblins and elves are interesting but ultimately not to his taste. The gnome woman is oddly tempting; Mathias can't claim he's never thought about it. But raising his eyes, Mathias looks again at the human woman with the long blue hair. She's a shade older than the other women. She appears Gilnean, and her clothes are plain, but her face is pretty in a steely sort of way. She's most certainly a fighter, and she holds herself with no-nonsense poise. Mathias raises his eyebrows at her, and when she points to herself questioningly, he nods his consent. She smiles slightly and draws her daggers in a single smooth movement, which gives him a split second of pause before she places them on a nearby table and comes forward.

Mathias grudgingly widens the spread of his legs a little, enough for her to squeeze into the space between them.

"Loren. Wonderful," Jorach says. "Andy, Nikki."

Mathis scowls as Nikki and the Anduin doppelganger go to Jorach. Nikki stops off at the weapon table to doff her top hat and place it down. The boy kneels between Jorach's openly splayed knees, but the goblin woman is the right height to keep her feet. "His name is _not_ Andy," Mathias complains.

"You don't think he looks like an Andy?" Fondly Jorach pushes a lock of the boy's golden-blond hair behind an ear as Nikki unlaces Jorach's pants.

It's beyond inappropriate. Mathias ignores Jorach and ignores the sensation of Loren running her hands over his thighs and groin overtop his pants. "What's your real name, boy?"

The Anduin lookalike glances at Jorach before he answers in a voice that sounds nothing like Anduin whatsoever. "Karlos."

"You're unbelievable, Jorach," Mathias tells him. "Get him out of here, please. Nothing against you personally, Karlos."

When Karlos looks to Jorach for direction, Jorach pets the boy's cheek with the backs of his fingers. "He makes absurd amounts of money," Jorach says. "He's happy, I'm happy, all his clients are very happy. Everyone's happy but you, Mathias." But with a final pat Jorach gives the boy a tiny nod and lifts his chin at the exit, and the young man rises to leave. Jorach crooks his finger at the glowering, lean-muscled male sin'dorei. The elf's foreboding expression remains, but he uncrosses his arms and deposits his gloves and twin longswords on the table before coming forward and dropping to his knees beside Nikki. The leather of his pants is so well worn, his movements don't so much as whisper. 

"You may go, my lovelies," Jorach instructs the rest of them, and they file out.

Loren grabs back Mathias' attention by beginning to open Mathias' borrowed pants at the fly. He's torn between wanting her to, wanting to see the expression on her face when she first looks upon his cock, and wanting to slide his hand down and stop her.

"Loren, don't touch his balls," Jorach advises.

Loren pauses as if thinking over the possible implications of such a command while knowing better than to ask. Then she nods.

"Can I touch his balls?" Nikki asks with a flamboyant toss of her hair.

"No, he's been injured in the war and he's still healing. Take that gum out of your mouth," Jorach says, as if it's an old argument, and Nikki cheerfully lifts Jorach's calf and pretends to stick the big, pink wad of chewing gum to the bottom of his shoe. Or maybe she more than pretends, Mathias can't tell from his angle.

Jorach sighs at her and she drops his foot, pops the gum back in her mouth, chews twice more and swallows with an exaggeratedly seductive expression.

"That's disgusting," the blood elf man says, watching critically.

Jorach nods. "I agree." 

"Everybody's a critic," Nikki says with good humor, meeting Mathias' eyes. "See, I always swallow," she adds, and then she ducks down over Jorach's cock.

Loren likewise bends over Mathias' lap, and Mathias is glad his pants are still on and only undone, and glad for the dimmer lighting preventing the discoloration in his skin from showing up, unsightly red and sore as his flesh proved in the bright light of the water closet. He's grateful too for Niron's thorough job with the washcloth.

The situation is so alien Mathias isn't hard. He contains his reaction as Loren starts to lick his cock up and down, all around before suddenly popping his still-flaccid cock entirely into her mouth, and then to his embarrassment he lets out a small, involuntary moan. It's been a very long time. Thankfully no one reacts at all, but then, Mathias reflects, why would they?

Nikki and the elf man take turns sucking Jorach as though they've done this in tandem before. With no real seriousness they jockey for position and access and mock shove at each other, after which competing briefly turns into kissing. Nikki giggles while the blood elf man snarls through a toothy bout of kissing her, though each of them keeps a hand on Jorach the whole time; Nikki stroking his thighs while the blood elf continues to jack his cock. Their antics and interplay are almost enough to distract Mathias from Loren. It's obviously all for the sake of putting on a show, but Mathias finds it difficult to take his eyes off them all the same.

Loren sucks him steadily, quietly and professionally, keeping her lips tucked down over her teeth. Despite his discomfort, she manages to suck him to half-hardness. Mathias hesitates to touch her blue hair, though as soft and feathery as it appears, he wants to. He keeps his hands balled in loose fists at his sides.

"You can touch her," Jorach says as if reading his mind, or more likely reading his face or body. "You can fuck her if you prefer." He points behind his head. "There's a bed--"

Loren pulls up long enough to say, throatily, "Anything you want."

Mathias shakes his head.

"You haven't changed much, have you?" Jorach asks.

Mathias stares at him. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Not the--" Jorach breaks off with a gesture between their laps as if to indicate 'not the sex.' "Just-- you're still so deadly serious, you're allergic to smiles, you can't let your hair down and you say as little as you need to."

"The word you're looking for is 'laconic,' boss," Nikki supplies. 

"Thank you Nikki," Jorach says, and he pats her head once before nudging her back to work.

Mathias takes that in, his face impassive. Jorach says it all straightforwardly, with no hint of insult, merely stating facts. 

"And here I was just thinking you bring out my sense of humor," Mathias says.

Jorach sighs at Nikki, leaving his hand on the back of her head, weighting it as she bobs up and down over his cock.

"I will now break my own rule and discuss business," Jorach says in a low voice, turning back toward him, close and intimate and deliberate as though he's talking dirty. "I found the latest spy you insinuated into my organization. Springslip. You should stop sending them."

"I know you have at least five placed in SI:7," Mathias says, voice flat.

"Only five?" Jorach says innocently. As Nikki pulls away the blood elf takes her place.

"But I don't kill them all, because that's a ruthless, wasteful thing to do. Especially while Azeroth is under invasion like this. There are other ways." Mathias has imprisoned some in the Stockades and fed others a mix of true and false intel until they can't tell Ravenholdt which way is up. A couple he's ordered kept subtly drugged, but Jorach doesn't need to know any of his methods. "We may need every blade to get out of this demon mess alive."

"Agreed, and lis--" The blood elf does something to Jorach's cock that makes his breath catch and his hips surge, but after a moment Jorach continues. "Listen. Assuming the Council votes to help you, and assuming we can stop Detheroc... if we make it through here, I propose we try something different."

Mathias stares at him, all ears, and what Loren's doing to his cock feels almost like background. Unimportant. "What are you suggesting?"

"A partnership," Jorach says, stroking the elf's ear with his long fingers. Mathias watches Jorach's hand, always in motion. "Send back Sams, and keep Vexel and Alaria at SI:7. I haven't ordered Springslip killed yet. Send me one more of your agents, and they'll be open messengers, and we'll have an exchange. I propose instead of this eternal back and forth cold war we're doing, hoarding our separate information, we share information going forward. At least until the end of the Legion war. If it has an end."

"An alliance." Mathias pretends to think about it, though in truth he's already, immediately made up his mind. He's surprised Alaria is one of Jorach's, and he's more surprised Jorach would name his operatives so openly, but he says nothing about it; this confidence means only that Jorach judges him astutely, and even after all this time and at a distance, knows him well enough to be certain he'll want this partnership. He spares a moment to wonder whether Jorach is aware he's been experimentally brainwashing Sams for the past year and a half. Mathias gives in to temptation and gently runs his fingers through the sides of Loren's hair. "I accept your proposal. I think it's high time, actually. Though I can't be involved in the Uncrowned in any official capacity."

"If we drive the Legion back and win this war, we can revisit the issue after. Keep the compact or end it."

Mathias nods.

Jorach seems to be uncharacteristically hesitating over his next words, and the cause isn't the dark head bobbing up and down on his cock. "There's one additional-- thing. Dreadlords tend to be boastful about their exploits?"

"Yes, I got that first-hand," Mathias says.

Jorach rubs a knuckle over his drooping moustache, hiding his mouth. "Did Detheroc ever mention Amber Kearnen?"

Mathias doesn't want to look at Jorach for this conversation, but with Loren's head in his lap, Nikki and the blood elf to one side and Valeera to the other, there's no safe place he can direct his gaze, so he closes his eyes and leans his head back. The couch has a nicely positioned neckrest, and Mathias lets his head loll back. "He gloated about Amber both to other demons in my hearing, and to my face."

"I'm sorry," Jorach tells him quietly.

For a few moments there's silence but for the sounds of mouth sex, until Jorach speaks again. "Were you even going to tell me?"

"I assumed you knew already." Mathias rubs his face with one hand. Having his face clean and shaven feels good, a hundred thousand times better than the greasy skin build-up and unkempt beard growth of his weeks in captivity. Mathias opens his eyes and looks at Jorach. "You knew about everything else."

Jorach's lips quirk in acknowledgement, and he lifts his glass from where it rests on his thigh. "To Amber Kearnen. One hell of a woman."

Mathias covers his eyes. "Don't talk about her like that. She was like a daughter to me, Jorach." And he'd never told her, and now he'll never have the chance. He'd been proud of her, of her training and her fearlessness and her accomplishments, and so fond of her. She had to have known.

"I know."

"Our age difference was bad enough." Mathias had been seventeen, Jorach thirty-one. "Yours and hers, you should be ashamed," Mathias says disapprovingly.

Jorach chuckles. "I am not. Only grateful."

"Why did she end it?" What happened between Jorach and Amber is none of his business, but Mathias cannot deny a measure of unseemly curiosity. Mathias' instincts make him quite sure Amber, not Jorach, was the party to conclude their long-done association.

"And here I thought you knew everything about your agents," Jorach says, but then he concedes dismissively: "It was just an affair. She was less than half my age, she moved on." Jorach inhales a deep breath and exhales, then takes a sip of his whiskey before continuing slowly. "I suspect she found the underworld not to her taste. She wanted to feel like... one of the good guys. She was much more suited to your line of work."

Jorach says it all casually, but the topic seems to make him pensive, so Mathias resists the impulse to voice any further moral judgements. Not least because he needs Jorach on his side whenever Vanessa Vancleef finally deigns to mosey on in.

Mathias tips his head back for a moment, sighing. "She was a good person, with unfailing courage and a kind heart, and she was one hell of an operative."

"I will drink to her any which way," Jorach says agreeably, and Mathias lifts his tumbler of whiskey to clink against Jorach's. As he drains his glass Mathias feels tears prick at his eyes, and he lowers his head back to the pillowy neckrest to hide his emotions, closing his eyes again. His self-control is usually ironclad, but Mathias is only too familiar with the way traumatic experiences can affect even the strongest of people, and the truth is he's a mess.

"She was probably on her way here for your help," Mathias says morosely, and he's grateful his voice comes out steady. 

"Likely, yes," Jorach agrees.

"She would have been the one to take over for me when the time came."

Jorach's hand lands on his shoulder. "That is hard," he says, and Jorach either understands keenly or should have made a career in the theater.

Mathias keeps his head tilted back until the pressure behind his eyes eases. He can grieve later when the world doesn't hang in the balance. After the impulse to weep passes, Mathias rolls his head sideways, gazing at Valeera. He wants to change the subject, wants a distraction, preferably an arousing distraction, from sorrowful thoughts of Amber, stress over the Legion, memories of his imprisonment, and the fact that his cock has gone soft in Loren's pretty mouth.

Valeera's eyes are closed, her legs spread wide, the Vinemaster settled on the floor between them with his own legs crossed and his hands resting on either side of her ass. His head blocks the view of her sex completely, and he stays nearly still. His head shifts only in tiny movements now and then, so he must be busy with lips and tongue between her thighs. Her head is tipped back, her fingers lost in his hair. Her shorts and underwear are puddled around one ankle.

"Is he no good at that?" Mathias asks Valeera. The blood elf sucking Jorach's cock raises his head so abruptly Mathias glances over at him, but the elf's scowl fades when he realizes he is not the subject of the question, and he bends back down and rededicates himself to filling his mouth.

Valeera is seemingly unaware of this mini-drama six feet away. "He's the best," Valeera says without opening her eyes.

"You're so quiet," Mathias observes.

Valeera's voice is dreamy. "I'm learning so many things."

"I think Mr. Shaw might like you to mind your own business," Suntouched says teasingly, pulling back and tilting his head up, stretching and rotating his neck.

Valeera pushes his head back down. "Yes, because I certainly got my position by minding my own business."

Mathias watches the blood elf sucking Jorach for a second, and he can't deny the sight is arousing, and there's nothing wrong with Loren's technique either, but he's not feeling any of it.

"This isn't working for me," Mathias tells Jorach as he slides a hand down to cover his cock, stopping Loren and disentangling from her. "It's not you," he offers Loren, who flashes him a slight, uncertain smile before her eyes move to Jorach's face. They all take their cues from Jorach, Mathias thinks, before he turns to Jorach too.

In a wordless, questioning gesture Jorach points to the top shelf along the wall, lined with a rack of tiny identical bottles. Mathias can guess what they are, and he shakes his head. "No, thanks."

Jorach gives him a piercing look as Mathias relaces the fastenings of his pants.

"You can go," Jorach says to Loren, kindly enough, and he caresses the elf man's long thin ear once more before nodding at him and Nikki too. Then Jorach seems to think twice and moves his hand to the elf's wrist. "Friends," Jorach says, in the way another man might say 'Children'--a single, polite word in a tone that only clarifies their subordinate relationship to him. Loren and Nikki both take notice, too. "The rule about cutting out flapping tongues goes double when Mathias is here," Jorach says. "Not a word."

"You know it boss," Nikki affirms, and the elf bows his head.

Jorach tucks his still-hard cock back into his pants and laces up while the three collect their things and leave.

"Don't they call her... 'the Gossip'?" Mathias asks after the door clicks shut.

"It's an ironic nickname," Jorach answers. "Trust me. If discretion is valor, they're Azeroth's greatest heroes."

Mathias snorts.

With remorse in his voice Jorach adds, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought up Amber."

"That was only part of the issue," Mathias says carefully and as non-judgmentally as he can. "Paid-for sex... is just not my thing."

"Is any kind of sex your thing?" Jorach asks, looking away as he pours himself another dram.

The question is more personal than they've volleyed back and forth thus far, giving Mathias pause. "Have you been keeping tabs on my personal life?"

"Obviously."

Mathias strokes his newly trimmed beard, still enjoying its crispness. "I'm not sure whether I should be flattered or disturbed."

"Why would you be either? It's just information. You obviously knew this room when you saw it," Jorach says wisely, and turning back towards Mathias Jorach flexes arthritic fingers in his direction. "So you've been keeping tabs on my hideout, my health conditions, my employees... stalking is entirely normal in our profession."

Mathias wonders whether he's going crazy or this conversation is heading where he thinks it's heading. "To answer your original question, I stay busy with work."

"Perhaps... with someone you know?" Jorach asks, arching an eyebrow. "Someone who simply wanted to?"

Mathias' heart slams in his chest a little faster, and the air suddenly feels full of tension. "Depends on who it was, I suppose."

Jorach smiles and leans in, as though there's nothing extraordinary about the idea. Mathias freezes for a second, but then he closes the last inches between them and their lips meet. The kiss is chaste, no tongue. Jorach's breath is redolent of the whiskey, though he seems to hardly exhale, and he pulls away first.

"Valeera, would you excuse us please?" Jorach asks, not taking his eyes off Mathias' face.

"You two are unbelievable," Valeera says, but Mathias thinks he detects a note of wistfulness lingering in her voice. The Vinemaster rises and offers her a hand to her feet, but Valeera doesn't take it. Standing, she steps lithely back into her underwear and her tight shorts together, then pulls both up over her thigh-high leggings, and Mathias gets his first and only brief glance at what lies between her legs: taut outer lips, swollen and flushed with arousal, and a flash of a thatch of dark blond hair.

Mathias breaking eye contact with Jorach seems to have freed up Jorach's attention, or his willingness to look away, and he too watches Valeera as she collects herself. "Please, all four of us know you wish you could stay and watch," Jorach says.

"Only to have the horror story for my collection," Valeera says with a demure and teasing smile. "The wrinkles alone--"

"Please. You've seen so much worse in this room," Jorach reminds her. "How about the time Tethys and Smudge brought back that--"

"Stop!" Valeera commands loudly, holding up a warning finger. Suntouched is cringing and laughing at the same time, and Mathias has a wistful moment of his own, envying them their camraderie as Valeera leads her paramour out the same door they came in.

Jorach's somehow managed to have it all--for all that he's in charge, Jorach has equals and close friends, henchmen and underlings and a collection of low-caliber but enthusiastic courtesans in his employee. Mathias prefers to keep things more professional than casual, but he feels a pang all the same.

Jorach looks after Valeera affectionately as the two leave, and then takes Mathias' hand in his own, and for a few seconds they only look at each other. "The truest test of friendship, I have always thought," Jorach says, "is whether you can come back and pick up where you left off."

"I feel like we've picked up," Mathias says dryly. "That said, whatever you're thinking, I'm probably not up for it right now."

Jorach runs a hand through Mathias' still-damp hair. "I wasn't thinking anything at all," he says with a smile.

Jorach seems disinclined to kiss him again, only studying him from a foot away, though he continues playing with the hair at the nape of Mathias' neck. Jorach's just opened his mouth to speak when a steady knock comes thrice on the door. 

"Come in," Jorach calls, pulling away from him as the door to the Chamber of Shadows opens, and--it's Valeera.

"Vanessa's back."

The change in Jorach is immediate--his face resettles from warm, relaxed familiarity into his blank and businesslike mask. Jorach appreciates the severity of the situation after all, Mathias decides.

"Duty calls then," Jorach says, and Mathias nods.

When the two of them exit out the door to the Chamber, Mathias sees the Shadows have assembled. Tethys, Taoshi, and Garona are all sitting around the Council table. Vanessa VanCleef is standing to the side with Tess Greymane only a couple of feet away.

Mathias bows head and shoulders to Tess when she sees him, and Tess acknowledges him with a nod as she and Valeera head for their chairs. Valeera gracefully jumps up and sits on the back of her chair with her feet in the seat. Mathias favors Taoshi with a dip of his head, all the while feeling Vanessa's eyes on him. At last he turns his attention to Edwin's daughter.

"We meet again at last," Vanessa says when their eyes connect, dangling her outstretched hand a foot from his face. Mathias kisses the back of her hand only because she seems to expect him to, even suspecting she's mocking him with this introduction. She's right, it's been years. He can see Edwin in her at a glance. She has her father's eyes, his lips, the set of his jaw, and the same jauntiness to her posture, a cockiness to her hips that's all VanCleef. Mathias feels another swell of emotion to see the likeness of Edwin come again, and he turns away.

For a moment he wishes... but just as Amber found her place in SI:7, Vanessa VanCleef unquestionably belongs with the Uncrowned.

"Let us commence," Jorach says. No one offers Mathias a chair, so he stands at the corner of the table between Jorach and Taoshi's chairs. Jorach's seat is at the head of the table, but he too remains standing.

"The situation in Stormwind is worse than we thought," Taoshi says. "But we have a plan to reveal Detheroc for the imposter he is."

"Mathias, would you care to do the honors?" Jorach asks.

"Yes, thank you." Mathias collects himself to explain. "First, allow me to express my gratitude that you risked your lives to rescue me."

"Taoshi is correct. The situation is dire and degrading quickly. The Alliance is about to launch an attack on the Horde." He's getting ahead of himself. "Posing as me, Detheroc is whispering lies about the Horde in the ears of the new king of Stormwind. He must be stopped before it's too late.

"Detheroc and a great many demons waylaid us on the Broken Shore. Our plan is predicated on taking Detheroc by surprise, so he'll have no time to prepare. He'll have replaced some of the SI:7 and the city guard with demons, but there won't be as many around him." As he speaks, Mathias looks around the table. "The plan is simple: sneak into Stormwind, expose Detheroc, and then kill him."

Mathias takes a deep breath. "Tethys will get us to the harbor by sea. We will have to stealth through to SI:7. We cannot fly in; the risk of discovery is too high. Detheroc has snipers on the rooftops and wanted posters up with all your faces."

Mathias pauses. He can think of no more to say.

Jorach smoothly takes over, speaking clearly and deliberately. "To review-- what we act to prevent is Detheroc's plan to redirect Azeroth's armies against each other, to spend Azeroth's might and manpower while sparing the forces of the Legion from a concentrated attack."

Vanessa holds out her hand, tapping index and middle fingers against her thumb in some kind of signal, and Jorach walks around the table to place a cigar across her palm. Jorach pauses again, going back to his place, though still not sitting down, and knocking back the remainder of his whiskey before he continues.

"So we are voting," Jorach says, raspy now from the drink, "on the following plan of attack. Tethys will sail Mathias and Taoshi and one other into Stormwind." Jorach clears his throat. "Tethys stays with the skiff. Mathias and the others rappel up the cliffs of Stormwind. Once in the city, they stealth into SI:7 headquarters in Old Town, confront Detheroc and send him back to the nether."

A loaded pause ensues. "Would anyone else like to speak before the vote? Comments, questions, counter-proposals?"

Tess puts a hand up, then says, "Mathias, nothing personal, but you're not up to scaling the cliffs of Stormwind and fighting a dreadlord. The way you look right now, that is a suicide mission."

"Princess," Mathias says as courteously as he can, "I am fully prepared to do whatever needs to be done, or die trying."

Tess says nothing.

"Thank you, Master Shaw," Taoshi says. "That's the plan, Uncrowned."

"As always the vote will be binding," Jorach adds. 

Taoshi looks around the table. "All in favor?"

"I vote yea," Jorach says formally.

Tethys pours himself another gin. "Aye."

"Nay," Tess says, shaking her head.

Valeera meets Mathias' eyes briefly. "Nay."

Mathias' heart sinks with a stab of defeat, and he feels his shoulders deflate. There's no way he can take on Detheroc alone, and he's not sure where else he can turn.

Taoshi inclines her head. "I also vote yes. This must be done."

"Nay," Garona says.

Vanessa seems to be deliberating, taking her time as she meditatively lights up her cigar and puffs on it. A sliver of hope rises in Mathias, though he can't tell whether she's sincerely considering the situation or simply drawing out his agony.

"I vote yea," Vanessa says at last.

The flare of hope swells, bubbling up within Mathias.

"I'm not so much concerned with the Uncrowned 'doing our part' as making sure there's a world left to run," Vanessa goes on. "And I will go with Mathias and Taoshi to kill the dreadlord."

Jorach seems unsurprised. "The 'ayes' have it, we help stop Detheroc. Any objections to Vanessa and Taoshi taking the mission?" Jorach asks the room.

"No one may object to my presence," Taoshi says in her fluted Pandaren accent. "It is my plan."

"Come with me, Mathias, you need better armor if you're going to do this," Jorach says, and Mathias follows him through another doorway and down a hall that leads to a tiny closet apparently used as a makeshift armory. The whole place is like an ant hill, Mathias thinks.

Jorach rummages around on the shelves, pulling out armor to fit him, and piece by piece Mathias straps on the gear.

Fully outfitted, he's about to step out the door when Jorach turns and catches his arm, stepping closer which forces Mathias to look up at him. "It's a terrible idea for you to go," Jorach says. "Tess is right about that. You're so thin, you're weak."

"I need to go. If the city guard gets involved, I'm the only proof Detheroc's an imposter," Mathias answers. "And I'm the only one who knows the hidden route up the cliffs. I trust VanCleef, and Taoshi. Don't you?"

"Yes, with my life," Jorach says. "But I worry for you."

As Jorach gazes down at him, something in his concerned expression feels telling. Mathias slides a hand around to the back of Jorach's waist, feeling his solidness. Standing in a romantic embrace, close enough to feel each other's breath--it's a good position to stab someone in the gut, or to get yourself stabbed. "The fake king of Stormwind, sin'dorei rough trade, goblin sex on wheels--"

Jorach laughs delightedly.

"--the close personal assistant, all your Uncrowned friends... and you're lonely, aren't you?"

Jorach sobers a little. "Ah. Disgustingly insightful as ever."

Mathias half-smiles at him.

"It's lonely at the top, don't you find?" Jorach asks, without self-pity, his eyebrows lifting. Then he smiles back and pulls away, and Mathias falls into step beside him. "Though I'm sure a little esoteric loneliness seems like a wonderful fate, a glorious destination even, after you've been in a prison like yours for a few days."

"It is," Mathias admits. "Lonely at the top."

"Then I hope if you don't die, you'll come visit. I do look forward to our new partnership," Jorach says, his eyes and the words full of double meaning.

"I promise if I don't die, I'll come back and do more than just visit," Mathias says, trying to give back as good as he gets in innuendo, and Jorach walks him out to where the others are waiting in the Council chamber. Tethys, Taoshi and Vanessa are standing close together in conference near the opposite door.

Jorach stops at his place at the Council table. "Be careful, Mathias." 

"I will." Mathias finds he doesn't want to say goodbye. "Look to the shadows."

"The raven calls," Jorach says, and he gives Mathias a quick wink.

Mathias walks over to where the others are conferring by the door.

"These two here live wires think we should leave at once and do it tonight," Tethys says when he approaches. "But we'd have to go right now. Don't ye want to get some sleep ere we head out, lad?"

"I'll take a nap in the skiff." Mathias glances around at them, at Tethys' crooked, cheerful red face, Taoshi in her calm, furry self-assurance, and Vanessa still chewing the cigar in her mouth and looking for all the world like a female version of Edwin. Mathias feels gratitude, the beginnings of confidence, the start of adrenaline in his muscles. They're going to do this, and they're going to win.

"Let's go."


End file.
